Uncharted world
Postcard #16
Hello and welcome back to another edition of THE POSTCARD, Unregistered’s fortnightly roundup of recommendations.
Thoughts, tools, and treats
The world we grew up in is a thing of the past. We all live in uncharted waters now. Do not continue reading if you lack fearlessness, resilience, and curiosity.
The West no longer exists
„At least now we know the truth,“ David Frum remarks in The Atlantic: „The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.“
The EU is not in a good position
„Europe has been badly misgoverned by its establishment (...) Its economic position is parlous, its demographic situation is miserable and its military capacities have atrophied, and most of the chest-thumping about a revival of European power is empty talk and fantasy politics.“ Ross Douthat writes in The New York Times.
The EU really is not in a good position
Just ask people who do things. Here’s an example. Philipp v. Geymüller, an Austrian-Swiss winemaker, reports: „The ‚labeling regulations for the design of labels‘ of the Federal Wine Inspection, which are based solely on the Wine Law, comprise 89 pages, where everything is so complicatedly regulated, from the font size (completely beyond any practicality in mm and not, as is usual for graphic designers, in points) to various prohibitions regarding what may be stated in what context, depending on whether it is a "Landwein" (country wine) or a "Qualitätswein" (quality wine) with or without DAC, that designing such a label is almost impossible without the help of a lawyer.“
The UK rejects privacy
The UK expects Apple to give the government access to all iCloud data without Apple telling anyone. John Gruber: „The bottom line is that the UK government is proceeding like a tyrannical authoritarian state. That’s not hyperbole. And the breathtaking scope of their order — being able to secretly snoop, without notice that they even have the capability, not only on their own citizens but every Apple user in the entire world — suggests a delusional belief that the British Empire still stands.“
Zero-sum thinking is everywhere
From politics to pop culture: Damien Cave notices that zero-sum thinking is everywhere nowadays: „It pinches perspective, sharpens antagonism and distracts our minds from what we can do with cooperation and creativity. People with a zero-sum mentality can easily miss a win-win. But the far greater danger for zero-sum thinking is the lose-lose.“
Noteworthy
“Because culture is afraid to name its dependencies and instead gets bogged down in defensive particulars, chainsaw artists have an easy time.“
—Hito Steyerl, artist, in Berlin, on January 30, 2025
A mystery link leading into the unknown
And yet:
As always,
Dirk
P.S.: Feel free to send me pointers to articles, books, sites, pods, tools, and treats that could be interesting for this roundup. While I cannot promise to link them, I read and appreciate every hint.
I am neither fearless nor resilient. Dirk's article was therefore tough to read. Which does not diminish its accuracy or value. It is, what it is. I need hope, which can rightly be called naïve. Yet my hope is that Europe will leave its infancy stage. After 80 years of vacation from our own history, it is time to grow up and no big brother at the other side of the pond will help us any longer. Adolescence is a difficult period, let's hope we become grown ups.